THE WORDS THAT TWANGED and thrummed their way to Nth said, New food coming, and he stirred, resettling his legs to take the measure of the message: how far, what direction, who originated it. Mother’s Brood was large. Some of her children were more reliable than others.
New food. Different food. That had everyone’s interest. Across the span of the web, that was strung in mistlike sheets from tree to tree across their forest, he felt the others rousing, rising from their torpor. There was always food, even for so many bodies as Mother’s Brood ran to, but variety was welcome.
In the dark wood, the deer ran in their many herds, feeding in the clearings under the shadow of the webs, and being fed upon in turn. Mother saw to it that there were always clearings, where the great trees had been poisoned and weakened. There would always be deer aplenty.
In the trees there were monkeys, and they were clever and often escaped the hunt or the web, but this, too, was Mother’s plan. The monkeys were just clever enough that there would always be enough monkeys. They were aware enough to realize their fate, when they were caught, and that gave their juices an extra savor.
There were no wolves, no stalking cats. It was not that the flesh of these things was unpalatable, but they were wasteful. They consumed too many deer and monkeys for their presence to be tolerated.
New food, though. Nth waited for the words of the web to tell him that this prize was taken, so that he could beg Mother for a taste.
More speech came from the hunters, a constant commentary as they shadowed the intruders into the dark wood, hurrying above them while their siblings wove traps and barriers to channel them and funnel them.
New food. Man.
Men sometimes strayed into the wood. Nth had an understanding that there were places beyond the wood that were Man places. Those of the Brood that strayed beyond the wood frequently did not return, and this was placed at the door of Man. Those Men who strayed in the wood were served similarly. As now.
Nth felt the trap primed, a score of the best hunters of Mother’s Brood hiding among the branches, ready for the ambush. The weavers were already retreating, broadcasting that they had done their work well.
Then the web was ringing, dancing, and he could not find words in it, just a roaring of undifferentiated noise coming to him through his belly and his feet, so that he scuttled from roost to roost, trying to rid himself of the cacophony, trying to understand.
Fire! came a word that stopped him. Fire was friend to Man, no friend to Mother’s Brood. Then another sibling had found a secure post to speak from and the message jumped and bounced to Nth: We die! They come to prey on us! Protect Mother!
Instantly Nth was moving, by web and branch, surefooted and swift, scurrying toward the source of the disturbance. His very tread told those nearest him, I am coming, and the same words came from all around. Mother’s Brood was mobilizing to crush these intruders, these Men.
As he ran he felt the quick, fierce words rattle beneath him:
They have severed the web. They have destroyed the trees.
Many?
Few. But they have much Fire, and a light that burns worse than the sun. They can strike from afar.
Destroy them! Protect Mother!
Protect Mother!
And a dawning horror even as Nth crept and reached from tree to tree, stop-start, stop-start, because the Men were pressing deeper into the forest; because they were slaying many of the Brood. Because they were headed straight for Mother.
Ahead of him another swathe of web crackled and parted, shriveling to nothing in a sudden burst of heat. His clustered eyes caught the glare of it, little more, but he changed course. The Men were traveling faster than word could keep up, leaving the Brood constantly off-balance. Every time their fire flared they were striking Nth’s siblings dumb by destroying the lines and nets that they spoke through.
Then he was close to them, seeing only the pattern of their movement, the knot of Men like a single many-limbed entity to his weak eyes. At the fore it had metal claws, and those of the Brood that attacked them, mad with their fear for Mother, were pierced and cut, limbs hacked from their bodies, innards spilled and strewn and trampled as the Man-creature moved on.
There was a tremble in the ground that spoke to Nth, and a wave of his siblings caught up, a tide of gray-haired, bulbous bodies and arching legs, fangs gaping, furious at the deaths of their kin, at the damage to their home, at the sheer temerity of these trespassers. Fire roared from the Men—not one of their small fires that guarded them as they slept, nor the smaller ones they held by hand, but a great deluge of it that seared across the Brood, boiling them in their skins, setting them briefly ablaze before they broke open from the heat, writhing and twitching in momentary agony that the ground took straight to Nth and all the others.
Together! one of his siblings drummed, and they were all rushing—more of the Brood in one place than Nth had ever known, drawn from all over the wood. He braced himself for the fire, telling himself, It cannot kill us all, and that if he died for Mother it would be worth it.
He had forgotten the light they had spoken of. From the center of the Men there issued a golden radiance—not heat, not force, but pure light, so bright that his poor eyes were blind instantly, but more than that. There was a mind behind that light, and it despised him. It punished him. He felt its vast and potent displeasure crush him to the ground, sweep him away, so that he was running, they were all running, and the Men pushed on, horrible, unstoppable, unbearable in their desecration of his home.
The Brood rallied, and now he was among that wave running after the Men, catching up—and there was another gout of flame that crisped the hair on his legs, and another half-dozen of his siblings died screaming.
And Mother.
The Men had broken into her lair, a clearing in the heart of the wood that was so hung with centuries of webs that it was like a cave, and there they faced her, and the Brood had come from all around, thronging the trees, blackening the ground behind them, to either side, climbing the webs overhead, ready to descend and sacrifice everything to have some hope of saving she who had given them life.
She had raised herself on her limbs, a giant ten times the size of the largest of her Brood, her largest eyes bigger than the head of a Man, her fangs as long as their metal claws.
But the Men had fire and light, and so many of the Brood were dead to prove it. They could kill Mother. They could end it all. Nestled amid his siblings, Nth trembled, hearing the messages of fear and confusion and anger from all around him.
Then Mother spoke to them, even as she took a few careful, stalking steps forward. Be still, my children. Hold your fangs. They speak.
“Steady!” Dion called. The disc of Armes in her upraised hand bathed them in radiant light that brought confusion to the great host of spiders all around them. She could see its purity burning the monsters’ eyes, driving back their Dark nature. In her white tabard over the bronzed scales of her mail, she positively glowed with reflected light: a figure from legend, indomitable. But there were so many of them.
There were five who had braved the forest. Dion led them, infused with the radiant power of her faith. Each of them had sworn to her cause to bring down the blight on the world that was the man-god Darvezian but they were a disparate lot who followed for their own reasons. Cunning Lief thought there would be profit in it. Vengeful Harathes the shieldman loathed all creatures of the Dark with a passion, while the archer Cyrene served to expiate some long-hidden guilt, some action or inaction of hers that had driven her to this bloody and dangerous atonement. Of Penthos, the fifth member of their desperate band, whose hands even now crackled and roared with ethereal fire, Dion had no idea why he had come. Right now she was only glad he had.
“We’ve been in worse places than this!” she reminded her fellows.
“Penthos, what’s a word for something that’s all over covered with spiders?” Lief asked, crouching virtually at her feet. He held his spear close to him as though loath to get it filthier with spider ichor.